The Shortcut
by Sophia Villo
Summary: What happens in the woods, stays in the woods. Unless the woods leave their mark on you. On his first solo mission, Newkirk finds out what happens to city people when they tangle with the outdoors. Submission for the 2014 Short Story Speed Writing Tournament.


There must have been something wrong with the mirror.

Because the reflection that met his face did not - could not - belong to him. It might have belonged to a troll, or maybe a very sorry looking puffer fish.

Corporal Newkirk leaned into the mirror, squinting at the reflection to make sure the thin morning light wasn't to blame.

A few men shifted and turned over, just coming to. Newkirk calculated about twenty minutes before the room as a whole came alive. He should have been taking his sweet time in getting up in about half an hour, especially after last night's mission. His first solo mission outside the wire evidently didn't go as smoothly as he'd related to Colonel Hogan last night, which left out a few seemingly unimportant incidents. Now he began to wonder how insignificant those "incidents" actually were.

Newkirk gingerly poked and prodded his face, trying to find familiar features underneath the red, blotchy patches that covered most of the visible skin – a face that was, until this morning, just another face. The left side was inflamed to twice its normal size, forcing his eye nearly shut. On the right side, a vicious red bump cause even more swelling.. "What happened to me face?" He mumbled blearily, still not fully awake yet.

"Newkirk?" Corporal Lebeau's voice drifted sleepily from his bed. Quiet though he spoke, the early morning silence amplified it unnaturally . The bed creaked as Lebeau climbed down from the top bunk and yawned again, then set to work preparing breakfast. "You're not usually up this early. Roll call isn't for another…what happened to your face?" He cried, hurrying to the mirror for a closer look.

Muffled voices of just-woken men muttered something about the time and piping down.

From the bed nearest the door, Sergeant Carter propped himself up on his elbows, staring at Newkirk through the posts of the bunk bed. "Wow, Newkirk, it looks like you ran into a wall," he said.

Sergeant Kinchloe, another early riser, jostled his way into a corner of the mirror. "I'll bet he got too friendly with fraulein Elsa in town. You know she's not that kind of girl, Newkirk." Kinch reached across Newkirk for the faucet. "And stop hogging the sink. The rest of us have gotta get cleaned up."

Narrowing his eyes, Newkirk scowled at first Kinch, then Carter. "Very funny. Ruddy bunch of jokers you are."

"Doesn't it itch?" Carter asked.  
"After sleeping on these beds, who could tell?" Newkirk unconsciously scratched his face and regretted it immediately.

The holler of pain woke anyone who had not already been roused by the conversation. Every eye turned to the culprit of the rude wake-up call. The last dreams of half-awake men vanished along with the peaceful morning.

Carter switched on the light and the swelling took on a whole new dimension. Newkirk splashed cold water on his face, desperate to numb the pain. The evidence of his less than stellar woodsman skills left a visible mark on his devil-may-care reputation. Clearly he did care that his face now resembled a half-inflated balloon and felt like a lump of burning coal.

"It looks like poison oak to me," offered Carter. "Or poison ivy. Or poison sumac. One summer, I got into a patch of poison sumac, and I got a rash in places I never thought I had!"

Kinch handed Newkirk a tube of ointment. "Maybe," he said. "I suppose he could have had a reaction to something he ran into last night. But as far as I know there's no poison ivy-like plants in Germany."

Newkirk rolled his eyes. "You're tellin' me, mate." The crowd around the mirror split as Newkirk moved to the table to sit. Dabbing the medicine on the reddest spots cooled the irritation a little, but didn't lessen the stinging welt. He tossed the ointment onto the table, resigning himself to a day of sidelong glances and questions, seeing as how the rash remained stubbornly vibrant.

As roll call approached, all residents of barracks two milled about with varying degrees of energy through their morning routines.

The door to the senior officer's quarters opened, and Colonel Hogan join the crowd, heading straight for the stove and the beckoning coffee pot. He looked about to say something, but as he reached for the pot, he caught sight of Newkirk trying his best to appear casual. Whatever Hogan was going to say died in a look of dismay. "I thought you said you didn't have any problems last night, Newkirk!" Sitting himself opposite the corporal, he met Newkirk's eyes, silently demanding an explanation.

Newkirk shrugged, hoping to make light of his injuries and the situation in which he received them. With arms on the table, he leaned in as if trying to shield himself. "Like I said last night, the meeting with White Rabbit went off without a hitch. I ran into a little trouble on the way back is all." Though he spoke with a low voice, the bare-walled wooden room did nothing to help hide his words.

"Patrols?" Hogan asked.

"Well, not exactly," Newkirk said slyly, a smug smile hinting at undisclosed pleasures. "I was held up in town, shall we say."

"It _was_ Elsa then," Lebeau elbowed his friend.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. We were havin' ourselves a time – you know how it is. She's quite the girl, she is. Next thing I know, it's past time for me to be leaving. You know how the krauts are about us not being in bed for bed check." Taking the mug of coffee offered by Lebeau, he took a long sip. "So I took the shortcut just past the bridge."

Filling in the blanks, Hogan said, "you got lost." Of Newkirk's many talents, outdoor skills did not figure into most of them.

Newkirk grimaced slightly, either from the bitter brew or embarrassment. He knew by the distracted movements of the others that most everyone paid more attention to him than what they were doing. Addison re-tied his shoes for the third time, and Olsen couldn't get his bedding quite straight. "More or less," he admitted. "I must 'ave gone too far south; almost ran into a patrol and had to take a detour."

"You said you didn't run into any patrols," Hogan reminded him.

"I didn't," Newkirk agreed. "I ran into a badger."

No one would laugh at Newkirk, with his touchy reputation. But judging by the arrested looks from around the room, it took colossal effort to not react.

The corner of Newkirk's twitched at the barely concealed amusement. He leaned back and continued. "Tripped right over it. Ruddy thing walked right in front of me. Next thing I know, I've got some furry face starin' me down."

"I take it the badger didn't appreciate being ran into?" Hogan asked with a chuckle.

"You got that right, gov. If it hadn't had to figure out what I was, I would've been done for."

"Did you catch it?" Carter's question pulled Newkirk short mid-story.

"Did I catch it, Carter?" The question sounded even more ridiculous when Newkirk repeated it in pained disbelief. "Why the blazes would I try to catch it?"

"Well, they've got good meat on them." Carter explained with an air that suggested that this should have been obvious. "Boy, it'd be great to have some meat around here."

"No, Carter, I didn't manage to catch it while it chased me halfway across Germany," Newkirk said drily.

"Where was I? Before or after the wasps?" All pretense of secrecy vanished from Newkirk's voice. Without acknowledging anyone watching from the sidelines, he nevertheless found himself more interested in telling the story than he would have liked to admit.

"Wasps?" Addison stopped tying his boots. Olsen forgot to finish straightening his bed before he sat on it. No one feigned disinterest now.

Newkirk picked up the story again. "That badger had me in a bad place. Had to scarper up a tree to loose the bloody thing before it bit me leg off. It would've climbed after me, but I think it lost interest when the branch I was holding on to broke and the wasp nest fell." He took another drink, stretching out the effect of the moment.

"Well, I ran for it. I made it just about to the tunnel when I er, tripped on a rock. Landed in some kind of bush." Newkirk rubbed his face again, the remains of the vicious bush attack. "I gotta tell you, Colonel. I thought London was tough, but I hate those bloody woods. I swear the krauts have got them booby trapped."

"Uh-huh." Hogan considered the story for a moment, then asked, "did you cover your tracks?"

Newkirk didn't say anything. He didn't have to, the look on his face – realization followed by exasperation – said it all. Forest 4 – Newkirk 0.

Colonel Hogan stood and addressed the room at large. "Looks like we're volunteering for a work detail outside the wire, men. You," meaning Newkirk, "and Carter will have to go back and make sure no one can trace the path back to the tunnel." He started back to his office, but turned back just at the door. "And Newkirk? Don't take any more shortcuts."

A/N: Opening line courtesy of Accidental Truths, by Tuttle4077.

A/N Part II: Thanks to some observant reviews, I realized that the file hadn't uploaded the most recent version, The only difference is a few corrected typos. Apologies for the oversight!


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